Our days are filled with activity and, mercifully, leisure time as well.
Today Zep asked me to play Trouble with him.
Trouble, you know it, the game with the pieces that move around the board and pray to get into their safe zone before someone lands on them and sends them home prematurely.
See, I told you, you knew that.
I am trying to embrace these children.
Demitri will be joining Zepin in the school world this Fall and I know one day soon I will wake up and they will have beards... and girlfriends...- I want to cherish these simple
-today- moments.
So, with dishes undone, a book I would have liked to have been reading (Hands Free Mama), and a nap I could have enjoyed taking, all taking second fiddle, I sat on the floor across from him and played two rounds of Trouble.
This is when something happened.
It began easily enough.
I could have landed on Zep but thought about how, if I landed on him continuously, sending him home repeatedly, he might get discouraged, and how, if I extended him grace, and made sure to explain it that way, he would catch a glimpse of Heaven on earth.
Yes, Heaven during a game of Trouble.
The funny thing was, after moving a different piece, and thus saving him from returning home, he began to expect that continued treatment.
"No", I explained, "I will not skip you again. I skipped you last time. It is not proper that I always skip you, don't you understand? My choosing not to land on you is a gift. As it is, I choose when to extend grace and when to send you home."
But I don't think he caught on.
I do know that he continued to press for more "grace".
"Give me grace, mom", he must have requested six times.
Around that time I knew I did not want to forget.
I even reached for a piece of paper at one point, wanting to write verbatim, but not quite able, the expressions he articulated: The words he used.
It was as if the blinders I was wearing, the "this is a teaching moment from me to my son" were removed and suddenly I knew "this was a teaching moment from Jesus to me".
Jesus did not withhold His grace.
He could have. Given it in small measures. Seen who actually deserved it.
He could have, but He didn't.
He gave it all.
I know it isn't the same thing.
I did NOT give grace every time I could have landed on my son's piece.
It is important, I knew then, as I do now, that there was also the valuable lessons of losing gracefully and of not getting one's own way all the time, to be taught.
But I did offer grace often.And that was enough.
The lesson the Lord was teaching me had hit home.
Jesus gave it all.
Because I -mercifully- stopped "my time" to play with my oldest son (a sacrifice/non-sacrifice), the Lord was there, waiting to join us.
Waiting to love on the two of us with wisdom, adventure, and, yes, grace.
I wonder what other opportunities we shall encounter when we think/expect/hope/demand something one way and the Lord meets us there, with a gift?
How beautiful, to be in expectancy.
Oh, and yes, the Trains...our Trouble board is a $5 Thomas the Train one. ...and the kiddo. Here he is, that cool boy who said after I sent his red piece home,
Me: Are you having a bad day, buddy?
and I quote:
Him: *smirks* No, I'm not having a bad day, but that red piece may be!
love,
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